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Hiring An Intern to Manage Social Media

Ah, the lazy days of summer…and free summer interns. These few months can be a great time to recharge and bring in some extra hands to help out. Before you totally hand over the keys to a member of the social media generation, read some tips from Main Street Media Group’s Rebecca Nidositko about using summer interns to help with your social media.

This is the time of year that we hear about businesses turning over their social media marketing to interns and college students for the summer. If you’re one of those businesses, here are a few things to ask yourself:

1. Does your intern understand your brand and your business?

Your social media marketing is just as important as your visual and in-store marketing. At minimum, your social media manager needs to have impeccable writing, spelling, and grammar skills. What you really want though is a social media manager who has all that plus the ability to convey your brand’s voice in text and visuals.

2.Does your intern know how to use social media for business?

There’s a big difference between using social media to talk to your friends and knowing how to use social media for business. Each social media network has its own style, specifications, and rules. To make things even more complicated, social networks are continuously changing their services. Your social media manager needs to know how to use each social network appropriately and know when there’s a major service change that impacts your campaigns. Ideally your social media intern will also know how to track, analyze, and report on social media metrics so your company can continually optimize its social media marketing.

3. Does your intern have enough maturity and experience to speak for your company?

You can’t just hand an intern your social media passwords and walk away. Off-brand, copy-cat, generic, or inappropriate content could sink your brand in an instant. And, don’t forget that social media is social. You need to teach your summer social media manager how to interact with your customers. Product questions, negative reviews, and inappropriate remarks from Internet trolls are just a few of the situations your social media manager might encounter. Do you trust your intern to handle those interactions? Do you have standard replies or procedures for your intern to follow?

4. Are you in control of your social networks?

If your intern starts a new social media account for you, you need that login information. If your intern starts using a social media management tool like HootSuite or Tweetdeck to make your social media management more efficient, you need that login information. And, don’t forget, at the end of the summer when your intern leaves, you need to update the passwords and access to all your accounts.

We’ve all been interns at one point and know the great value of having an extra set of enthusiastic hands to help around the office. Just carefully consider our four questions to make sure your brand doesn’t get burned this summer.

If you have questions about making your social media sizzle this summer, please email or find us on social media to discuss more!